A - African Art

While searching on the internet for african art to inspire me on my final design I ended up on a website called insideafricanart.com and it had lots of different african artists as well as information on themselves. There was one artist that I found called Hendrick Lilanga whose work I thought was really interesting. I liked how he layer out his drawings so that they fill the whole page as well as how he drew the people in his work the had exaggerated features such as large noses lips or ears, he also added colourful blocks into his work possibly to fill the space a little bit more. His background is colourful in his work and contrasts with the people and objects which i think works well.

O - Orange

The colour orange gets its name from the fruit an orange. It is a secondary colour and is created by mixing the colours red and yellow. Orange is associated with meanings of joy, warmth, heat, sunshine, enthusiasm, creativity, success, encouragement, change, determination, health, stimulation, happiness, fun, enjoyment, balance, sexuality, freedom, expression, and fascination. 

J -

Q -

W -

X -

U - Universe

The universe is known as all matter and energy, including the earth, the galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space, regarded as a whole or even the earth together with all its inhabitants and created things. I don't know much about the universe so I had to do a lot of research into this to even get a basic understanding. One website I found that showed the scale of things compared to the universe i thought was interesting because it was mind blowing how huge it actually is.Though we have not yet explore our own Solar System fully it is only one of many solar systems in our galaxy. The largest galaxies can have as many as 400 billion stars each with their own star system. There are also more than 100 billion galaxies in the universe. Most of the asteroids in our Solar System can be found in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Some of these asteroids are so large that they have their own satellites. There are about 140 satellites orbiting the eight planets in our Solar System. I couldn't find many real photographs of space or anywhere in the universe but i found a few hyper realistic images that I think were created on some sort of computer program they are actually really interesting and I would like to create my own painting similar to this sort of image. I like the bright colours used and all the different hues and tones of the colours. I also like how parts of the pictures are exaggerated like the brightness of the colours and the amount of colours used it makes them look better than an actual photograph

Y - Yarn Bombing

Yarn Bombing is a sort of street art but not the most popular or recognised, it is basically where artists or groups of artists knit or crotchet colourful patterns in wool and create art on the street with them. Believe it or not wrapping material around things on the street is actually illegal but Im sure you wouldnt be prosecuted vigorously for it. While other forms of graffiti may be vandalism yarn bombing was originally almost exclusively about reclaiming and personalizing public places. Since starting this art form has actually spread worldwide and people even set up public events for this sort of thing in legal areas. My favourite of these is either the bridge or the turtle, the bridge because I can see its been done by a lot of people which shows there is a lot of unity in this work I think that is nice and its on a public bridge so it is shared with everyone to see its beauty and the turtle because he looks like hes wrapped in like a large doily.

H - Habitat

I had never heard of this retailer until my mum told me about it, but basically Habitat Retail is a household furnishings company in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Spain. They used to sell stuff such as furniture and decorations for houses a lot like the store we all know IKEA. The headquaters is in Milton Keyes England. Terrance Conran founded the company in London in 1964 and the first ever Habitat was opened in Chelsea. The company went into administration in 2011 and was bought by the same company that owns big names such as Argos and Homebase. In 2009 there were around 35 stores in the UK and now only as little as 12. I really like the furniture they currently sell there I love the design and colours of some of the sofas that they sell there especially the two person sofa I have never seen them before they look really interesting.

LIFE

I was looking through some of my Dad's old magazines and I found an issue of LIFE magazine from the 1940's and I just thought it was so cool all the old articles reading them as if they have just happened, all the hand drawn advertisements as well as how amazingly cheap a crunchie was back then, just 6p. A took a few photos of the magazine, my favourite part had to be the advertisement for an old chrysler it was so nicely drawn and laid out

Z - Zebra Finch

Zebra Finches are natively found in Indonesia and are named Zebra Finches because of the zebra pattern on their crests. I have always wanted to have some as pets because I wanted to fight and race them, I think that was the reason I wasnt allowed them to be honest. I have wanted them because they can be legally kept as house birds and they arent as loud as parrots. I like the patterns they have on them they almost look hand painted they are so beautiful, they gain their colour when they reach adulthood as children they are fairly plain and mostly grey. My dad had them as pets when he was younger and said he enjoyed keeping them as pets, I think I inherited my interest in birds from my dad he has always been into birdwatching.

V - Viva La Mexico

I had literally no idea what to do for V so i just tried to work the title around what I had been thinking about today. The other day I bought a t shirt with a crazy but really interesting skull design it just grabbed my attention when I saw it and I had to buy it! I had no idea where I had seen this before so I looked into this sort of t shirt design and its a design based on the masks worn on the day of the dead, which is hugely celebrated in Mexico. I learnt when researching into this holiday that The holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for friends and family members who have died in the past It is mostly celebrated in Mexico where it is a national holiday and the celebration takes place on November the 1st and 2nd. The families are said to build private altars honoring the deceased as well as leaving belongings of the passed family member sugar skulls and sometimes their favourite foods. There are a lot of skull designs used during this holiday to do with the death of people. I like how people celebrate death instead of mourning over it personally i think thats a beautiful way of thinking.

F - Favourite Artist

My favourite artist of all time is a graffiti artist from New York called Sento. I like his book so much, the documentation is so precise in the way it has so many quotes from the artist himself, in the graffiti world it is hard to talk to the artists because they work at night and dont want to be known by face for obvious reasons but it was nice to actually read things about the life of the artist I learnt so much about the dangers of this life as well as how addictive the rush can be. The reason that he is my favourite is not just because of his outstanding piece after piece it is more that he has stuck with street art even up to this year, to me it really shows how much he loves what he does. He inspires me in a lot because I would love to still be putting my style of graffiti onto paper at the age of 40 and be loving every minute of it. Throughout the years he has adapted his style which is something that amazes me because ive always found it hard to change mine that frequently, he will do a new piece of artwork and I will question that it is actually his because of the change each time. My favourite piece of work that he has done is probably the same one that is on the front cover and the reason I like it so much is because its such a large piece and I think the large the artwork is the more effect it can have on people, its the sort of size where you think how can you even afford that much paint? I like the basic clear sea blue colour he uses to fill the letters and the lava colour for the outline and surroundings.

I - Inspiration

I own a book called Subway Art written by Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant it basically documents everything about the urban subcultures of New York City and it plays a massive part in the inspiration of a lot of my graffiti art work because it was the time I came into contact with the origins of graffiti and really took it all in. What I love about this book is the way all the work in this book is nicely photographed in a way that you can see all the work head on and its framed really well. You can see what sort of train the work has been created on, the surroundings of the piece and the aftermath such as left over food wrappings and empty spray cans. I think these little things add to the work because it tells you that slight bit more about the artist's lifestyle. I like how all the photos in this book were actually taken at the time the work was done it makes it all feel so much more real almost like you were there when this was happening. Another one of my favourite parts about this book is that it has a lot of the artists views on parts of this street art era such as when the buffer was introduced and it says about how upsetting it was to have your artwork washed off trains in a matter of minutes considering it took them hours to create.

K - Keith Haring

Keith Haring was a graffiti artist born in Pennsylvania his work mostly involves colourful characters that are usually having fun dancing and moving around. He moved to New York in the 80's, when the life of graffiti and street art was really kicking off, and he did chalk drawings on the subway to share his art and express himself. I think his work is honestly  breathtaking some of the murals he has created are so wild and bright theres so much to look at. I like how each person he has drawn is doing something different and it makes you think where would all of these things be happening at the same time its really interesting. I like how he creates the feeling of happiness through his work even though none of the people he draws have faces, this shows a lot about how good he is at making the viewer feel something. The reason I started thinking about Haring's work is because I was in a skate shop and saw a few Keith Haring skateboards in like a series, I actually liked how they were designed with a different character on each board.

T - Tattoo

Myself I do not want tattoos in my lifetime because I always see young people getting really tacky chinese letters and the names of their cats underneath, I think people get them because its a cool thing to do. They wouldnt really suit me either. I do however like the idea of designing my own tattoo, it must be an amazing feeling to have your artistry chosen for someone to have permanantely on their body. To me that really shows how much they must like it. I like the look of some sleeve tattoos such as ones with lots symbols or pictures resembeling parts from their life. I know a lot of people dont like tribal art but I do like some of the patterns that I have seen. When starting my own design I didnt really know how to draw tribal art so i had a look at some examples on the internet,

a lot of them were fairly boring but I saw one with a tiger head and thought I want to replicate it but with maybe a cow because I like them more. I used pencil to draw my design but pressed on as hard as possible to create the blackest line like the ink used in tattoos

M - Manga

Since I was young I have been into a japanese graphic novel called DragonBall it is a series about the adventure of son goku as he grows up and trains to become a martial artist, his main search is to find the 7 dragonballs which can grant a wish to the beholder. On his journey he makes several friends, enemies and allies. Who battles with many people who are also in search of the dragonballs apart from they want them for the wrong reason. The show DragonBall Z, which is the sequel, was broadcated on TV between 1986 - 1996.. I have a full set of the old DragonBall comics from years ago and I have always loved them because of the art work inside is amazingly drawn by the artist and writer Akira Toriyama. I decided to try and replicate his work for myself by drawing goku in chalk pastels, I like the effect of the chalk, apart from the smudging, because it looks a lot like the style the original comic was done in.